Rachel Chinouriri on How Sobriety and Self-Actualization Inspired Her Sophomore Album ‘I Think I Spoke Too Soon’: ‘It Was Like Doing an Autopsy on Myself’

When she began work on her sophomore album, “I Think I Spoke Too Soon,” Rachel Chinouriri reverse-engineered the entire process. The British singer-songwriter, who made global waves with her deeply confessional 2024 debut “What a Devastating Turn of Events,” got a big piece of paper and wrote down themes and experiences that shaped who she’s become over the past few years. I was wearing glasses with the wrong prescription.

And it’s like, I could see it, but I was like, why am I not seeing this thing properly? It was really cool having it all pieced together.” Chinouriri ended up making “I Think I Spoke Too Soon” (out today), a concept album filtered through the lens of a bleary night on the town. It’s a record that grapples with the indecision and challenges of figuring out the person you are meant to become, largely substituting the thrashing guitars of “Events” for more synth-powered fare.

It makes sense that the first song she wrote was “The Good Fight,” a dreamy, percussive thesis for the album where she sings of being “with the friends I fucking hate” and washing down drinks to numb her loneliness. Writing “The Good Fight” made her realize that she needed to go sober, leading her to examine the self-destructive and toxic loop of drinking herself sick. On “Broken Chair,” the album’s jaunty centerpiece, she looks back on how dire the situation had become as she stumbles back home after last call.

The amount of times I’ve sat on the floor throwing up in the streets London… Thank God there’s no recordings of me. It’s not even the sort of person I am in any way, but I was doing it for fun. It made me feel almost a bit sad for myself.” Despite the album’s darkness, there’s musical levity to “I Think I Spoke Too Soon,” inspired by artists like Madonna and Donna Summer, that creates a crying-in-the-club juxtaposition.

Lead single “One Song Away From Crying,” for instance, is an ’80s synth bop that shimmers like light bouncing off a disco ball where Chinouriri feels the walls closing in on her: “I’ve never looked better and I’ve never felt worse,” she sings. During the Los Angeles stop on her headlining “Events” tour last year, she had the crowd in the palm of her hand, encouraging them to tell the person standing beside them that they love them, or to close their eyes and picture a place of peace. Communing with her fans is part of the Chinouriri experience, so much so that anyone who approaches her for a photo is also met with a real conversation.

That sense of online abandon continues to this day: Earlier this month, she called out an X user for posting a video where they ripped down one of her posters simply because it was next to one promoting Adéla. So instead of ignoring it and allowing people to almost cyberbully me, I’m going to acknowledge it and be like, yeah, I have seen this. And it makes me feel really sad.